So we hop in a taxi bound for the Dubai airport and headed to Cairo, excited for the next phase of this adventure. The driver promptly pulls over to the side of the road. His meter isn’t working. He is calling dispatch and keeps pressing the meter screen hoping it will come to life, but no go. We tell him to take us back to the hotel, and through his barely-there English says it is not his problem. What?! He attempts flagging down another taxi in the middle of traffic to transfer us to, as we get increasingly nervous about the ticking time, sitting here on the side of a four lane street with cars wiggling their way around us. This is clearly not working. He then pulls around the corner, and convinces another taxi that already has a passenger to take us to the airport; they swap us and our luggage out for the other passenger, and we are thankfully on our way. Phew!

The airport is busy but easy to navigate. A completely full, and thankfully uneventful, Egyptair flight gets us to a darkened-sky Cairo. We meet our rep who has our visas; there is always a sigh of relief when that happens as you just have to trust the guy will be there. No visa, no entry, of course. We ease through immigration and customs, and are escorted out to a dirt parking lot where a mish-mash of minibuses and vans and motor coaches haphazardly park waiting for their passengers. Tips are exchanged (everyone here expects a tip for anything and everything), and we are on our way into the city. 

It’s already a bit of culture shock from Dubai to Cairo. The former is modern and glittering whereas landing in Cairo the view from the plane is desolate and…brown. Not just the landscape, but pretty much every structure you can see. The city streets are jammed with traffic barely observing any rules of the road or signals, and the overpasses seem to be crumbling before our eyes. People are walking on the freeway, which is occupied not just by cars but tuk-tuks and horse-drawn carriages. It’s rather chaotic. The massive apartment buildings look barely finished or falling down, but clearly people live there. It is a very different way of life than we’ve just left in the UAE.

Our hotel that sits on the edge of the Nile is a welcome respite from the developing world outside. We are greeted genuinely, get a bite to eat, and call it a night from our room that looks over the flowing river.

We ease into Cairo for our first day. The sun rises late here, so we do the same…on the way to our first stop at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. It’s an old neo-classical building from 1902 that is long past its prime and will be replaced by a new national museum in the area of the great pyramids. The new museum has been under construction forever, and the local saying is that “…it will be opening in 2011!” 

Once inside the existing museum…poorly lit, randomly organized, small crowded rooms too hot for the masses (there’s no a/c)…we are thankful for our guide Ahmed who knows where the highlights are. And there are many! The task of a new museum to replace this one is understandably daunting: the collection has some 180,000 pieces. Ahmed takes us through the galleries telling complicated stories of of royal families and depictions of gods and what the hieroglyphics mean.  It’s all such a fascinating window into an ancient world (described in way too much detail by Ahmed, who enthusiastically goes deep) – the social structures, cultural practices, standards of beauty, the privilege of power and birthright. And it’s so inconconceivably…old. That seems the wrong word, though! Is the depiction of a king (who will also become a god in death) from 2500 BC really “old” or so beyond our ability to imagine the timeframe in which it originally existed that it’s worthy of a different idea?

Of course, this museum is the one that holds the artifacts of King Tut. The small portion of his tomb’s treasure on display is in a special, security-controlled room, darkened and hushed as if even our voices might damage the shining gold and lapis adorned sarcophagus and intricate, stunning-in-craftsmanship jewelry that accompanied him in death (he had many, many things with him in the afterlife, not just what we see here). A single-file procession slowly makes its way around the perimeter of the room, in the middle of which sits that famous coffin of the boy king we all know. Pictures are not allowed…

After a too-short bit of on-your-own time, a browse through the gift shop, and lunch at the nearby Ritz Carlton (don’t get too excited – it was a rather typical buffet), we climbed back into our bus and headed out of the city center toward the dusty  brown hills in the distance upon which sits the Citadel of Salah Eldin, constructed around 1180 AD. It’s perch above the city is maybe the highlight of the citadel itself, as you can see the great pyramids from here and a panoramic vista of Cairo.

Within the citadel sits the The Alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali built around 1840. We removed our shoes and followed Ahmed through to the courtyard. It’s a sunny day with a nice breeze, a welcome change from the sweltering heat and humidity of Dubai. Ahmed shares stories of the mosque…tells us about the ablution fountain (muslims wash before praying)…the victorian tower clock gifted from the French that never works…the addition of electric lights. I mostly wander about, taking in the view and pondering where I might take interesting photographs.

The interior of the mosque is beautiful and in one corner is the tomb of Mohamed Ali. Restorations are under way, and it’s oddly intriguing to watch the craftsman work on the chandelier. As we gather in front of the tomb, Ahmed takes the opportunity to passionately talk – at length – about how religion is about love, and we all sort of wonder if this is sincere or coached pro-muslim messaging intended for Americans. After all, tourism is big business in Egypt.

I choose to believe it’s sincere.

Salaam.